My objection
that the terror bombing of Manhattan and Pentagon was directed towards the US of
A, and not at all towards «all the rest of us», just as my modest suggestion
that we should watch the American terror warfare through the same moral goggles
that we use against the Muslim terrorism, seems to be the most provoking words
I've ever written.

Just about
1,500 people wrote reply e-mails to the Evening Post (Aftonbladet).
I have never taken part of something similar, and I am still unsure about how to
comprehend this enormous emotional storm.

Approximately a thousand of the posters
do agree with me, and give thanks by saying that it was liberating to see that at least a
single opinion constructor deviated from the common waving of flags, and the
total identification with the US of A.

And then there were about five
hundred with an opposite perception and they were generally furious. If you sort out
various propositions that I as quickly as possible should get deported to Baghdad, or
soon conceive of the fact that the market economy is best, I will sort the
answers under three main arguments from my critics: 1. they maintain that
the US of A saved Europe through defeating Nazism, 2. they brought up
a few conceptions of Islam that seem to build upon rather insipid information,
and 3. it is maintained as if it is a matter of fact, that white lives are more
valuable than lives of the third world, and that it therefore is natural that
we in our sorrow identify with people on Manhattan, but not as easily with
people in the third world.

To be correct, it was the
Soviet Union under Stalin's dictatorship that defeated Nazism. But this will
neither excuse Stalin as it would excuse the US of A for later wars and terrorist
acts if they were the real defeaters of Hitler.

The aspects of Islam one
cannot discuss because they usually don't build upon any insight; but rather
upon prejudice and fear.

I would rather think that the many
writers that find it natural to identify with white victims are right in their
flabbergasting sincerity.

When US of A a couple of
years back attacked Somalia in order to render harmless a bandit leader in their
capital, Mogadishu, approximately seven thousand civilians were killed. In this
way they killed the same number of people that were killed on Manhattan. This
mass murder – of people that are as innocent as the victims on Manhattan – didn't
even lead to any indignant TV-reports in the western world. Nor any sorrow or
minutes of silence. The episode is already forgotten.

It is this total lack of
compassion and ethnocentric western cynicism that produces hate and terrorism in the
third world. This problem can only be aggravated if we in the west conduct
ourselves as terrorists and retaliate with mass murder from the air. Moreover,
many of my critics feel that it is a total different matter to kill by military
aircraft than with a civilian commercial air plane, and that the military violence of the
strongest party automatically are to be viewed as morally superior to the weaker party's violence of
terror.

The growing animosity between all the Muslim parts of the third world and the US of A and their
allies, is what an American philosopher has described as «the war of cultures».
This is
the largest political question of our time. The conflict does not just stand
between different countries, but are also within our own borders.

To the general Swede,
the decisive question now is how the white majority treat the Muslim minority.
Most of our country's Muslims live inside our country simply because they fled a
religious dictatorship of such a kind as Iran or Afghanistan. It is a huge
mistake to blame these refugees for exactly the same politics that made them
into refugees in the first place. The Swedish security police have also for several
years now perceived people from Muslim countries to be the main enemy of the state. And
unfortunately, this dangerous and prejudice madness has been forcefully
encouraged the latter weeks (through minds like the CNN's —BearCY).
«—We all» are supposed to participate in the fight against terrorism.

This accelerated «war of
cultures» is currently our largest threat, both against world peace, and against
the stability in the Swedish society itself.

The Western world may perhaps
try to omit the danger by pointing at the superiority of democracy, for example
through prosecuting the terrorists themselves, rather than mass murdering innocent people in the
countries where we measure a lower value on human lives.

We may still choose. A so
called long-term war, which means systematically mass murders from the air
through many years, is the one alternative. The other is tolerance, increased
aid to the third world, and fight against racism at home.

One single insight is needed.
But judging by five hundred furious e-mails, this insight isn't as simple as it
should seem: One human life in Mogadishu are equally as worthy as one human life on
Manhattan. Those who say differently are choosing the way towards
disaster.

Jan
Guillou(A Swedish famous male writer who has got
Norwegian and French parents)